There were no changes to the distributed draft minutes from the January council meeting. Motion from Bruce to approve the minutes. Carried.

Business arising from the Minutes and Updates:

Heather’s retreat update (January 21st/22nd): 82 people attended on Saturday and 59 on Sunday. The retreat was well received. A participant sent feedback saying that they expected more periods of silence. Council agreed that we need to review how we present our retreats in our communications in terms of the use of the word ‘silent’. We also need to review our web information for new students to ensure that we are fully explaining the meaning of ‘silent’ in the context of retreats. Sandra offered to do the new student information review.

Margo’s retreat update (February 19th): 42 people attended. The retreat was well received and we had good feedback.

Finances:

June presented highlights of Wei’s financial report emailed to Council prior to the meeting, which included both January and February 2017 information as there was no council meeting in February.

Account Balances as of February 1st, 2017:

Chequing: $4,158.31

Savings: $6,765.94

TOTAL:$10,924.25

Account Balances as of March 1st, 2017:

Chequing: $4,141.84

Savings: $6,767.24

TOTAL: $10,909.08

Motion from June to receive the January-February 2017 financial report. Carried.

Constant Contact Annual Plan payment: this was made by Rod and Victoria IMS will reimburse him in March.

Victoria IMS annual event insurance payment has been made.

A scholarship application was received, reviewed and granted. This was to support the applicant attending a residential retreat being sponsored by BCIMS. The funds were sent to BCIMS.

Post dated cheques for Helga Beer for the rental of the yoga studio (Sunday Night Community Sit): currently we are paying Helga on a monthly basis and a suggestion was brought forward to give Helga post-dated cheques for six months. This will ease the administration for both Victoria IMS and Helga. Motion from Brock to implement the suggestion.

Bank statements from Coast Capital: we received a notice from Coast Capital regarding pending changes to products and services. There will potentially be an annual charge of $24.00 to continue receiving the statements in paper form (otherwise they will be available electronically). There is currently no charge for the paper statements. If there is a fee involved in the future (June will investigate what is/is not included in the type of account we have) Council felt that it might be in Victoria IMS’ best interest to continue to have paper records for historical reference. We agreed that Victoria IMS would pay for the cost of statements to be mailed. Motion from Rhonda for June as our financial representative to proceed with the matter. Carried.

Communications:

Website:

Council continued discussing options for improving our website through a number of suggestions at the meeting. We will arrange a special council meeting specifically to talk about the website in April (tentatively the 22nd).

Thanks to June for investigating sample websites for our review and for putting together a mock-up of a potential new ‘look’.

Year-end Reports:

A reminder to Council on the development of the various year-end reports for the AGM in May. Reports should be completed and distributed by April 15th. Reporting responsibility:

Report from the Chair – Brock

Finance – June

Retreat Statistics and Volunteers – Rhonda

Communications – Bruce, Rod and June (Constant Contact)

Sunday Night Sit – Margo, Sandra and June

Special Events – Brock

2017 AGM: A provisional date of May 25th, 2017 was set for the AGM. Brock will contact all members re date suitability.

Changes to the Societies Act:

Changes to the Societies Act came into effect on November 28th, 2016. We have until November 28th, 2018 to make the required changes to the Victoria IMS constitution and by-laws. During this time we will need to follow the new rules. Once we have made the changes to our constitution and by-laws they will need to be approved by members. It was suggested that we could aim to have the changes done for the AGM in 2018 and have members vote on them at that time.

Sunday Sit:

Gender inclusive washroom signs at the yoga studio: Brock met with Helga to discuss the possibility of changing the current signs to ones that include all genders. Helga thought it was a good idea and has met with the owners of the building to discuss the matter. Helga has indicated that there will be new signs for the washrooms although there is no timeline as yet for implementing this.

2017 Programs/Retreat Operations:

If a retreat coordinator is not on Council we need to assign a dedicated council member to liaise with that coordinator in the time leading up to the retreat to ensure that all aspects of the teacher’s visit and the retreat administration are covered and any issues brought to the attention of Council. For the remaining 2017 retreats we will need a council contact for Adrianne Ross’s retreat and for Steve Armstrong’s.This will be discussed further at the next meeting.